Oregon in its early days featured many folks who by today’s standards would score very low with Political Correctness points. James Willis Nesmith falls into that category, but with some redeeming qualities. One of Oregon’s first politicians, his time began with the Provisional Government, extending through the Territorial period well into Oregon’s early Statehood years. A member of the so-called Salem Clique, a group of Democratically inclined politicians who were prominent in that era, Nesmith outlasted the Clique’s breakup with the Civil War, serving as one of Oregon’s senators through the war years.
He was one of only eight Democratic senators – four Border State Democrats and four Union Democrats – to vote in favor of the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery. He abstained from the senate vote on the 14th allowing equal rights to all citizens under the law. Here, he was following the lead of President Andrew Johnson, a fellow Unionist. His allegiance to his fellow Democrat would cost him in the years to come.
EARLY YEARS
Nesmith came to the Oregon Country a young man. Born in New Brunswick, Canada in 1820, he grew up in Washington County, Maine, just across the border. His mother, Harriet Biron Willis, died when James was only one. After his father’s timber holdings burned in a fire, the little family moved in 1838 to Claremont, New Hampshire in the southwestern region of the state. The family originally came from Londonderry, New Hampshire near Manchester, part of the founding clan of the town having emigrated from Ulster before. James had little opportunity to go to school, only going long enough to learn how to read and write. Education became something he did on his own through reading. Only a year later, James and his father found themselves in St Charles, Missouri after a stop in Ohio along the war. Here, his father William Morrison Nesmith died 25 November 1839.
James came farther west to Oregon in 1843, a member of the Applegate wagon train which included Dr Marcus Whitman on his way back on his successful mission to maintain his mission along the Walla Walla River. Along the way, with time on their hands at the end of a day’s journey, he took part in imaginary law cases brought forth by lawyers in the group. The cases whetted his appetite for more. His legal mentors pushed him to study helping him continue his studies once he reached Oregon. The impression he gave out proved strong enough to become selected as a judge with the Provisional Government.
POLK COUNTY GIANT
Moving to Polk County in 1846, James married Lucinda Goff, daughter of an original family settling along Rickreall Creek. Lucinda’s father David had brought the family out to Oregon in 1844. The family overwintered at the Whitman Mission in Waiilatpu arriving late in the year with oxen in desperate need of rest. When the family finished their trek to the Willamette Valley the following spring, they ventured south of Mt Hood on a route later made into the Barlow Trail. Lucinda and James – 25 years old – married just a couple days before father David ventured off as part of a group led by Jesse Applegate and his two brothers to try and find an alternative route to Oregon from the south.
FARMER
Back along the La Creole Creek – today the name has changed into Rickreall – the Nesmith’s set up a farm on their land claims, farming with cattle provided by Dr John McLoughlin and eventually a flour mill sited a couple miles west of today’s Dallas. The mill, one of only two grist mills on the west side of the Willamette at the time, later sold to Rueben Boise, a lawyer from Massachusetts who went on to serve several terms on the Oregon Supreme Court.
During the 1848 “Cayuse War”, he became a captain leading militia to Whitman’s former mission at Waiilatpu. Returning from the east side of the Cascades, Nesmith decamped for the goldfields of California with much of the male population of Oregon. His success in the mines helped him establish himself stronger financially back along the Rickreall, he also repaid McLoughlin for his part of the cattle a few years before. Additionally, his new-found wealth allowed Nesmith to help finance other like-minded politicos who formed the Salem Clique in the new Oregon Territory.
NESMITH AND NATIVE AMERICANS
Travelling back and forth through southern Oregon gave him an introduction to local Native Americans in the Rogue River region. In the summer of 1853, another chapter of the Rogue River Wars played out. Joseph Lane – Oregon’s first Territorial governor in 1849, though by this time, serving as Oregon’s lone non-voting delegate to the US Congress – happening to be in the area, became the commander of a militia group moving against the Natives.
In response to a request for aid, a howitzer, arms and ammunition went south from Vancouver Barracks, dispatched by Major Gabriel Rains who commanded the Oregon District with the 4th US Infantry. The Army group commanded by Lieutenant August Kautz in his first outing after graduating from West Point after previous enlisted service in the Mexican War. Due to a lack of troops, Kautz’s wagons and howitzer were met in Salem by a company led by Nesmith. Together, they made the rough journey to southern Oregon.
TABLE ROCK
At Table Rock – a few miles north of the modern city of Medford – General Lane, a rank he gained in the Mexican War fighting under Zachary Taylor, had a force of about 700 men. Included was Indian Service superintendent Joel Palmer. Lane and Palmer gained a treaty with the Natives after a non-conclusive skirmish. Nesmith, with his ability to speak Chinook, serving as interpreter. He was a bit apprehensive when Lane told him they would be going to the Native camp unarmed. Nesmith remembered Lane telling him, “… if I was afraid to go I could remain behind. When he put it upon that ground, I responded that I thought I was as little acquainted with fear as he was, and that I would accompany him to what I believed would be our slaughter.”
Both sides were able to come to agreements by 10 September which quieted the Rogue area for the next two years. Nesmith told Lane as they withdrew from the Native camp, “I drew a long breath and remarked to the old General that the next time he wanted to go unarmed into a hostile camp he must hunt up some one besides myself to act as interpreter. With a benignant smile he responded, ‘God bless you, luck is better than science.’”
SALEM CLIQUE
Nesmith became acquainted with Asahel Bush, editor of the Oregon Statesman in 1851. This began a long connection with other like-minded Democrats in the mid-Willamette Valley who dominated politics during the Territorial and early Statehood period. They dominated politics like most party politicians achieved power at the time – patronage. The party in power got to name faithful supporters to various political offices with changes coming about with result of political votes.
In March 1853, Nesmith became named US Marshal for Oregon Territory replacing Joseph Meek whose term expired. He received the new office through the efforts of Congressional delegate Joseph Lane, another part-time early member of the Clique. Nesmith served until the end of November 1854.
An excellent book covering the deeds and doing of the Clique members is The Salem Clique: Oregon’s Founding Brothers by Barbara Mahoney.
YAKAMA WAR
1855 became marked by a series of treaties with Native tribes east of the Cascades instigated by Washington Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens with Indian Superintendent Joel Palmer by his side. The treaties were rushed through and not well received by the tribes. Money was to be paid to the tribes and lands set aside for reservations. Gold got in the way, however. Miners travelling through the new set-aside lands and were killed by tribesmen. In response, the territorial governors of Washington and Oregon called for militia to be raised to help the Army right wrongs.
Governor George Curry of Oregon raised four companies putting them under the command of now Colonel James Nesmith. Relationships between the territorial governments and the Army were poor due to the published opinions of Brigadier General John Wool – he had little regard for militia nor their war against the tribes. In response, Curry ordered Nesmith to operate independently of the Army, though to give what support he could.
INITIAL MOVES
Late in October, Major Gabriel Rains moved north to push into the Yakama country from The Dalles. His 370 soldiers of the 4th Infantry, 3rd Artillery and a small 20-man detachment led by Lieutenant Philip Sheridan and joined by another 400 men from Oregon under Nesmith with a couple companies of Washington volunteers serving under federal service. The Native contingent suffered a defeat 9 November with the Oregon volunteers taking part. The Yakama managed to withdraw as winter came on averting an outright defeat.
The war would drag on until 1858, though an augmented federal army would pull most of the load. Nesmith left the field being named Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Oregon Territory.
SUPERINTENDENT FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS
Two superintendents preceded him – Anson Dart serving from 1850 until the end of 1852 when he resigned; and Joel Palmer serving from March 1853 until being dismissed in 1856 for being seen as too lenient towards Native people. Both Dart and Palmer negotiated many treaties with local tribes, the goal being to buy the Natives off their lands. The Natives then would move to reservations east of the Cascades opening up all of the lands of western Oregon to white emigrants.
Dart’s eighteen treaties with tribes in western and southern Oregon never gained ratification back in Washington, DC because they failed to move the tribes east of the mountains. Many of the Willamette Valley tribes managed to include small reservations in the west to remain on, something new emigrants found unsatisfactory. Dart was also a nominee of President Zachary Taylor, a Whig. By 1853, the Democrats regained the White House. With Joseph Lane’s help, Joel Palmer gained the job from President Franklin Pierce.
TREATIES FINALLY RATIFIED
Palmer negotiated nine treaties with a better ratification record – seven accepted by Congress. These treaties removed the tribes to small temporary reservations until a large permanent Oregon Coast reservation became established. He also helped Isaac Palmer negotiate two additional treaties in the Washington Territory. The abrogation of those treaties by whites headed for newly discovered goldfields near Colville, Washington led directly to the Yakama War.
In 1857, Lane pushed for Nesmith’s appointment by new President James Buchanan to the superintendent job – at this time, superintendent of both Oregon and Washington Territories. The appointment vecame temporarily blocked by parties in the Senate. Nesmith blamed Lane, “I am inclined to think he has manufactured the things for the purpose of magnifying his efforts on my behalf.” It was the beginning of the end of the formerly good relations between the two men. As opposed to Dart and Palmer, Nesmith took a different view towards relations with Native Americans. Reporting to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC, he noted he saw “no way that the settlers can rid themselves of the nuisance, unless they can hit upon some mode for their extermination, a result which would occasion no regrets at this office.”
ANTEBELLUM POLITICAL SHIFTS
The men of the Salem Clique had rallied around Joseph Lane for much of the 1850’s. They helped Lane get voted in for four two-year terms as the territorial delegate to Congress. Then placed him as one of Oregon’s first US Senators when statehood was achieved in 1859. As time went on, Lane began focusing more on presidential possibilities. Northern Democrats ready to look the other way on the issue of slavery – so-called “doughfaces” – were in short demand.
The Whig party succumbed to the slavery issue in the early 1850’s splitting itself into different factions. With the ascendency of Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas and his emphasis on letting those populations living in territories – white populations – to decide whether to allow slavery or not instead of Congress, the Democratic party began its split during the Pierce administration. That split became aggravated by the Buchanan’s insistence upon congressional passage of the Lecompton Constitution in Kansas. The final passage proved a pyrrhic victory for Buchanan and the pro-slavery forces as the party ripped itself into two.
Oregon settlers came, by and large, from border areas in the Midwest – southern Illinois and Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky. They were not abolitionists by any means. But they also did not want to see slavery – or Blacks, in general – to move to their territory, hopefully soon to become a state. Like the country in general, the question of allowing slavery finally tore apart the old Clique. Bush and friends, including Nesmith, supported Douglas’ stand. Lane looked south and thought Oregon would as well.
NESMITH AND THE OREGON CONSTITUTION
The Clique stood fully behind eventual statehood for Oregon. It was, however, not until 1857 before voters in the Territory supported a convention to draw up a constitution for a hoped-for State.
Nesmith was not one of the delegates to Oregon’s constitutional convention. He did keep in close touch with events and campaigned for its eventual passage by the voters in the Territory. The constitution proscribed slavery. It also denied entrance to the state for anyone other than white settlers – two clauses passed by voters. Lane managed to get statehood approved by Congress in 1859 after rugged debate and a close vote. Many thought – including Lane – Oregon would vote for a presidential candidate of States Rights persuasion. A person who could continue the precarious union into the 1860’s.
DEMOCRATIC PARTY SPLITS
Regardless of the impending split in the Oregon Democratic party, Lane’s factions were able to get him elected as one of Oregon’s first two senators – elected 5 July 1858 and seated 14 February 1859. Lane was selected by the Oregon legislature along with Delazon Smith, both being in favor of slavery. The two drew straws to see which man would gain a longer term as senator – elections for the two senators from a state being held two years apart from each other. The shorter term came to an end in 1860 after a term of only 17 days. Lane and Smith, both earlier members of the Salem Clique – Lane, more from a distance – were successful in outnumbering followers of the Salem Clique at the April 1859 Democratic convention. Clique members, led by Lafayette Grover walked out as both Smith and Lane were renominated for the Senate.
A COMPROMISE CHOICE
With warfare on the home front, Bush blocked Smith’s re-election in the legislature. He arranged a walk out of like-minded Democratic members leaving the body withou a quorum. Combined with Republican members, that was enough to deny Smith a term longer than one month. Bush also almost defeated Lane’s candidate for Congress Lansing Stout who faced a Republican challenger in an overall Democratic state. Stout only won by sixteen votes showing the strength of the Douglas-Democratic forces quickly arising against Lane.
Combining with Republicans, the Douglas wing of the Democratic party in Oregon chose Edward Baker, a Californian Republican and old Illinois friend of Lincoln to replace Smith. By this time, Lane saw himself selected for the vice-presidential slot. He declined to run for his senate seat in doing so – for the Southern Democrats in the 1860 election behind John Breckinridge of Kentucky – also Buchanan’s vice-president. Lane thought Oregon would support him during the presidential election, but his gamble lost. Lincoln beat Breckinridge in Oregon by only 270 votes – Douglas by 1,200. With his role in the onset of the Civil War, Lane retired to his farm near Roseburg.
NESMITH SERVING UNDER LINCOLN
For Lane’s seat, the choice fell to Nesmith considered a strong pro-Union man as opposed to Lane who by 1860 was pro-cession. Nesmith proved a strong Unionist as party politics were briefly suspended in face of the war. He served as a member of the Senate Committee for Military Affairs. Secretary of War, Edward Stanton asked him to help in the oversight of the Federal draft of soldiers in 1863.
NESMITH AND HOOKER
His correspondence includes letters from General Joseph Hooker. Hooker, an 1837 West Point graduate originally from Massachusetts, had spent several antebellum years in California. Retiring from the army after a resplendent career including honors for his actions in Mexico, Hooker was recalled from his farm to oversee the construction of a military road linking Oregon and California. From those years, he was quite familiar with Nesmith.
Hooker was one of the names floated to replace Lane in the Senate. He demurred joining with the case for Nesmith, campaigning on his and Baker’s to become Oregon’s senators.
With the Civil War, Hooker returned to his native state taking command of a brigade of New England regiments. Fighting with the Army of the Potomac, Hooker advanced to division and then corps command. His wounding early at Antietam, one of the turning points a battle which should have given a Federal victory.
Frustrated by the escape of Lee from Antietam, Hooker proved good at politics, as well. He was in constant contact with Nesmith among others in the Congressional halls in Washington. His efforts undermined Army of the Potomac commander Ambrose Burnside, who served frankly as an underwhelming leader. Still, Hooker’s politicking for higher command made him enemies in both the Army and in Congress. Nesmith, on the contrary, definitely sat in his supporter’s section.
CHICKAMAUGA
In addition to the two committees Nesmith served on – Indian Affairs and Public Lands – several times, he was asked to take inspection trips by the Lincoln administration. Nesmith was on an inspection trip when he was caught up in the dramatic events of 20 September 1863. Probably, he was checking out questions of supply emanating from a lack of respect for the difficulties faced by the Army of the Cumberland. Commanding General William Rosecrans and Stanton were not on the best of terms. Nesmith joined the federal army early in September as they maneuvered their opponents out of Chattanooga in a bold and bloodless coup.
Catching up with Colonel Henry Hodges, the chief quartermaster for the Army of the Cumberland, on September 15, the two headed out to meet up with Rosecrans. Nesmith probably knew Hodges as a young second lieutenant at Vancouver Barracks during the Yakama War.
They met up first with General Gordon Granger at Rossville on the 17th. Granger and Nesmith were old friends dating back to the time Granger came west with the US Regiment of Mounted Rifles in 1849. Nesmith and Hodges then rode on to Rosecrans’s headquarters at Crawfish Spring the next day just south of what would become the battlefield at Chickamauga.
FEDERAL DEFEAT AND AFTERMATH
They remained with Rosecrans until the midday collapse of the Union right at which point, they became separated. Writing back to Oregon, he noted in the aftermath of battle he “saw enough of cowardice and imbecility to disgust any … man.” Returning to Washington in early November, he reassured everyone that while the Army of the Cumberland had been defeated, the position taken up at Chattanooga was excellent as were prospects for the future with the army under the new command of U.S. Grant. He probably provided input into the several Federal officers removed from their positions after the battle. In a letter home to his cousin, Nesmith described another Federal corps commander he encountered, Alexander McCook, “McCook ought to try some other business besides fighting.”
UNION PARTY BACK TO DEMOCRATIC
In 1864, Nesmith drifted away from the Union Party. He fell back into the folds of the Democrats by supporting the candidacy of George McClellan for president. Still, he was one of only four Democrats in the Senate to support the 13th Amendment. With Lincoln’s assassination and Andrew Johnson’s elevation, Nesmith found himself pulled in Johnson’s direction. He supported Johnson’s attempts to modify the Republican Congressional Reconstruction policies. This eventually backfired in his postwar re-election campaign in Oregon where Republican Henry Corbett defeated him.
LONG BREWING FEUD BEGINS
The other Oregon senator at the time, George H. Williams, a strong Reconstructionist, pushed back. Williams had also started out as a Democrat before the war. Originally appointed as the chief justice for the Oregon Territory by President Franklin Pierce in 1852 as a reward for his campaigning efforts. A strong Democrat who found himself in the camp of Stephen Douglas. Williams kept himself at arm’s length from the other Democrats of the Salem Clique. Unlike most of the members of the Clique, Williams was not in favor of slavery. One of his first cases – Holmes versus Ford 1853 – ruled slavery illegal in Oregon since the legislature had not expressly legalized the practice.
Like Nesmith, Williams drifted into the Union Party with the Civil War, but his anti-slavery position – he also argued against allowing free Blacks residency in the new State during the Constitutional Convention – pushed him further into the Republican Party as the war went on. He was rewarded by being elected as a US senator in 1864. In Washington, Williams joined with the Radical Republicans helping to write both the first Reconstruction Act and the Tenure of Office Act in 1867. These factors placed Williams and Nesmith on totally opposite sides during the administration of Andrew Johnson. Williams voted to impeach Johnson while Nesmith did not.
RETURN TO WASHINGTON
So, with Nesmith about to return to Oregon, his Senate term ending, rewarding his support, Johnson nominated Nesmith to become the ambassador to Austria-Hungary. The Senate committee, with Williams playing a significant role, declined to confirm the appointment. With that, Nesmith returned to Oregon to his farm though still playing a role in rebuilding the Democratic party.
Democrats did return to power in 1870. Lafayette Grover, one of Nesmith’s old Clique comrades won the governorship. Nesmith was selected in 1873 to serve out the federal House of Representative term of his nephew Joseph G. Wilson who had died before taking office. As a congressman, Nesmith showed revenge is a dessert best served cold.
REVENGE AT LAST
Williams, after Johnson left the presidency in 1860, was a strong supporter to the new President US Grant. Grant appointed Williams in 1871, first to serve on a Joint High Commission to resolve Civil War claims with the United Kingdom. Shortly after this, Grant tabbed him as his Attorney General, the first Oregonian to serve in a federal cabinet position.
In December 1873, Grant chose Williams for the post of chief justice of the Supreme Court by President U. S. Grant. The choice met with strong resistance both because of the lack of judicial experience and other factors accruing during the somewhat corrupt Grant administration. Both Corbett and Nesmith were successful, among others, in blocking the Senate confirmation.
CLOSURE
Returning home to Rickreall in 1875, Nesmith spent the rest of his life on his farm dying in 1885. Another of the early Oregon giants to disappear. His home is still present – though quite remodeled from early days – on the south side of Rickreall Road leading east from the village. The family cemetery is part of a county park on the south side of Rickreall Creek next to the county fairgrounds.
